What would you give up to ensure that your children repent of their sin and put their faith in Jesus, so that they might to go heaven one day?  Is that worth all of your savings?  Would you be willing to be tortured to ensure that they spent eternity with God?  How about if your life was required to provide this assurance?  Ultimately, for better or worse, none of these are options.  God provides no guarantee.  It is left to His sovereignty and we must trust Him.

However, think these questions from another perspective.  Are you doing everything you can to influence your children to trust God rather than their own efforts for salvation?  Consider these areas:

• Your teaching of them: Do you read the Bible with them and explain the stories at their level, review the church lesson to ensure they understood and remember it, find ways to apply God’s word to the situations they face in life?
• Your protection of them: Do you know their friends and counsel them away from ungodly influences, interview their boy/girl friends to serve a shield against poor motivations and engage them in conversations about the media they consume to that they understand its influence?
• Your example before them: Do you make church attendance a priority, study the Bible in front of them, pray with them, ask for their forgiveness when you are wrong and ask for God’s forgiveness in pray with them, model a love for friends and family along with a self-sacrifice for others’ needs?  For Fathers, do you model what their heavenly Father is like in patience, grace and sacrifice?
• Your love of them: Do you model God’s love by forgiving them when wronged, overlooking minor differences that do not cross Biblical lines or endanger them?  Do you express your live by spending time with them, hugging them and complementing them about their God-given abilities?
• Your prayer for them: Are you constantly before God in prayer asking for His guidance in raising them, for His protection for them and their salvation and endurance in the face of persecution?

This may seem like a long list, but think about the original question.  What would you give up – time, money, health, life – to lead them towards eternity?  Would you do anything less with regard to your example, teaching, love, prayer or protection (while always resting in the comfort of God’s control)?